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Sept. 6th News Conference

Science magazine is holding a newsy conference Sept 6th to release the findings of the research paper produced by da working group. In this article Kim Flottum expresses some of the same "follow the money" concerns many of us had early on .

I think the bigger question is if this virus is coming in from overseas (guessing Australia), will import of live honeybees be eliminated or at least implement some inspection criteria. See Jim Fischer's article below.

If it is indeed a virus then we can expect that there will be no treatment AKA. Silver bullet to take care of the problem, so far they havenít been able to cure the common cold antibiotics are ineffective against viruses. It may just have to run itís course and prevention of contagion my be the only defense.
I think the reason for the secrecy is they are going to tell us they still donít know, and just have eliminated some of the usual suspects.

The Busy Bee teaches two lessons: One is not to be idle and the other is not to get stung.

I'm guessing its a virus of opportunity, that when in conjuction with other factors, makes it much more deadly. Combined with stress, poor nutrition and suppressed immune systems, deadly results happen.

Mike, I think thats what Keith is elluding too. That we need to be more ware of the interconnecting impact of how we keep bees, what put in the hives, and understand this relationship a little better in the future.

I said many months ago, that there will be no silver bullet coming out of this. I think at the end of the day, we will see "general recommendations" to minimze events in the future.

Makes sense, but still leaves me questioning..... I've read that they have been experimenting with the CCD dead out equipment and placing "healthy" packages back into the old comb, and these new colonies also collapse.

"Good beekeeping" makes sense, but it seems that in the case of CCD ( whatever it may be ) we may need to go a step or two beyond just sound beekeeping practices. Seems to me that it may be similar to, let's say, AFB. No matter how attentive the beekeeper may be with his colonies, if it does crop up, good beekeeping will not save them. Further steps must be taken to properly address it.

Mike, Keith brought up the fact that we don't have a cure for the cold. True, but we have many precautionary advice in limiting the common cold. And overall, a healthy person with good amounts of rest, proper nutrition, low levels of stress, and hand washing(germ control), with good fitness....on average will be healthier then the person having the opposite features.

Even with afb, we certainly know how its transmitted, what it needs to outbreak, control measure such as comb rotation, hygienic behavior on both the beekeeper(swapping frames) and the bees(cleaning of cells and enhanced breeding efforts) all have impacts on the level and outbreak models.

So if its a virus, what could we "guess" at some of the advice would be.

I think large holding yards, high stress beekeeping, questionable nutrition, poor genetics, beekeeping management practices, high risk pollination crops, among others will all play their part. I have said before that I think that the overall beekeeping industry may need to look at itself and make some hard choices.

We certainly live with the common cold and afb. But we certainly modify our behavior and tactics when we see the risks involved.

One note about the common cold. You never(always exceptions) get the same cold twice. But with over 550 different strains, you would need to have a cold once a week for a life time to "immune" yourself. Your body does all the "curing" you ever need. And perhaps this wil be so with the bees. It may be something that we will once again need to breed for (resistant or after the fact exposed bees), till the next time we catch(import) something from somewhere.